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Theresa Kraft

@tkraftdesign

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Designer | Preservationist (and current President of the @howland_cultural_center 1872 Richard Morris Hunt ‘Jewel of Beacon’) #richardmorrishunt

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“It's not about me, it's about the building” Chronogram held a #beaconny #community #photo shoot in the historic Howland Cultural Center in Beacon. To say I’ve been busy this month is an understatement… more like a year and two weeks - HCC President - my #joyjob #boardpresident #nonprofit @howland_cultural_center @artsmidhudson @dutchesstourism #newyorkstateofmind #richardmorrishunt @thisplacematters #historicpreservation #nonprofit #cultural #artsy #gallery #photoshoot #notaboutme #volunteer @chronogram @nationalregisternps taken in Howland Cultural Center by @tkraftdesign

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3 years ago

Freshen the Flowers, She Said (Mary Oliver)

“So I put them in the sink, for the cool porcelain
was tender,
and took out the tattered and cut each stem
on a slant,
trimmed the black and raggy leaves, and set them all -
roses, delphiniums, daisies, iris, lilies,
and more whose names I don’t know, in bright new water -
gave them

a bounce upward at the end to let them take
their own choice of position, the wheels, the spurs,
the little sheds of the buds. It took, to do this,
perhaps fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of music
with nothing playing.”

#MaryOliver
#beaconny
#hudsonvalley
#tiorondagardenclub
#flashlightgardening by @tkraftdesign

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8 days ago

Moon and Water – @MaryOliver
“I wake and spend
the last hours
of darkness
with no one
but the moon.
She listens
to my complaints
like the good
companion she is
and comforts me surely
with her light.
But she, like everyone,
has her own life.
So finally I understand
that she has turned away,
is no longer listening.
She wants me
to refold myself
into my own life.
And, bending close,
as we all dream of doing,
she rows with her white arms
through the dark water
which she adores.”
#beaconny #hudsonvalley #tiorondagardenclub #mothernature #flashlightgardening
SO MUCH LOVE IN MOTHER NATURE. Look at all those heart leaves 😍 by @tkraftdesign

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a month ago

Flashlight Gardening
Lessons to be learned “The more thankful we are, the more gifts appear in our lives, all around and within us.”
The Gift @MaryOliver
“Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.
So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.”

#beaconny #hudsonvalley #tiorondagardenclub #mothernature #flashlightgardening by @tkraftdesign

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a month ago

The Garden @MaryOliver
“The kale’s
puckered sleeve,
the pepper’s
hollow bell,
the lacquered onion.
Beets, borage, tomatoes.
Green beans.
I came in and I put everything
on the counter: chives, parsley, dill,
the squash like a pale moon,
peas in their silky shoes, the dazzling
rain-drenched corn.”

#beaconny #hudsonvalley #tiorondagardenclub #mothernature #flashlightgardening by @tkraftdesign

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2 months ago

Tides by Mary Oliver

“Every day the sea
blue gray green lavender
pulls away leaving the harbor’s
dark-cobbled undercoat

slick and rutted and worm-riddled, the gulls
walk there among old whalebones, the white
spines of fish blink from the strandy stew
as the hours tick over; and then

far out the faint, sheer
line turns, rustling over the slack,
the outer bars, over the green-furred flats, over
the clam beds, slippery logs,

barnacle-studded stones, dragging
the shining sheets forward, deepening,
pushing, wreathing together
wave and seaweed, their piled curvatures

spilling over themselves, lapping
blue gray green lavender, never
resting, not ever but fashioning shore,
continent, everything.

And here you may find me
on almost any morning
walking along the shore so
light-footed so casual.”

#beaconny
#lavender
#mothernature
#maryoliver
#squarefootgardening by @tkraftdesign

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3 months ago

@maryoliverofficial - In Blackwater Woods

“Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.”

@beaconny #hudsonvalley @seanie_vaughan_music #livemusic #indiefolk #beaconnymusic

Another night in paradise, AKA #joyjob by @tkraftdesign

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4 months ago

@MaryOliver From White Pine

“What I want to know, please, is
what is possible, and what is not.
If it is not, then I am for it.
My heart is out of its flesh-phase.
I am done with all of it, the habits, the patience.
Whoever I was, it is growing hazy and forgettable.
Whoever I am, it is for mere appearance’s sake.
It is for coin, and foolishness,
and I am thinking of something better.
All morning it has been raining.
In the language of the garden, this is happiness.
The tissues perk and shine.
Truly this is the poem worth keeping.
A mossy house anyone with sense would enter
as soon as the soul begins
to desire the impossible.
I have never felt so young.”

@beaconny #hudsonvalley @tiorondagardenclub #squarefootgardening #garden #mothernature #beaconnyartist

yep, might be late in your book, but it’s called Flashlight gardening in mine… by @tkraftdesign

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4 months ago

“Everything That Was Broken
by Mary Oliver

Everything that was broken has
forgotten its brokenness. I live
now in a sky-house, through every
window the sun. Also your presence.
Our touching, our stories. Earthly
and holy both. How can this be, but
it is. Every day has something in
it whose name is forever.”

My happy place! #hudsonriver #beaconny #hudsonvalley #nystateparks @bannermancastletrust #thisplacematters @destinationdutchess by @tkraftdesign

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6 months ago

Everyday is Earthday!

When I am Among the Tress - A poem by Mary Oliver
“When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”

#beaconny #hudsonvalley #tiorondagardenclub #earthday #mothernature by @tkraftdesign

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6 months ago

Snowy Night by #MaryOliver
“Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.”

My slice of paradise…
8” and counting… 📏🙃Jan 23, 2026 1AM

#beaconny #hudsonvalley #tiorondagardenclub #mothernature beaconnyartist by @tkraftdesign

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8 months ago

Excerpt from Mary Oliver’s book SOUND

“TO MAKE A POEM, we must make sounds. Not random sounds, but chosen sounds.
How much does it matter what kinds of sounds we
make? How do we choose what sounds to make?
“Go!” does not sound like “Stop!” Also, in some way, the words do not feel the same. “Hurry up!” does not sound or feel like its opposite, “Slow down!”
“Hurry up!” rustles with activity, leaps to its final punch.
“Slow down!” pours from the tongue, as flat as two plates. Sounds differ. Sounds matter. “No ideas but in things,” said William Carlos Williams. And, for our purposes here, no things but in the sounds of the words representing them. A “rock” is not a “stone.” But, why is a rock not a stone?”

#beaconny #hudsonvalley #howlandculturalcenter #poetry #maryoliver by @tkraftdesign

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8 months ago